Schools closed by students. Public transit closed by workers. The government brought to its knees by the organized anger of workers and youth. In France, this was the reality of the situation over three weeks in late March and early April.

Millions of people rallied throughout the nation to protest the CPE (“first employment contract”) and the attack on workers it represents. The CPE was written by the business leaders of France and allowed French employers to fire employees under the age of 26 without reason or warning during their first two years of employment. Currently, most French workers get contracts that ensure process and warning before termination.

The victorious outcome of this struggle – the law was scrapped by French President Jacques Chirac – is correctly seen as a blow to the bosses’ neo-liberal agenda both in France and internationally. The CPE is not isolated – it is part of an offensive by international corporate elites to take back the job security, healthcare, and benefits that were won through struggle throughout the 20th Century.

Millions of workers see the CPE as the second stage of a step-by-step plan to give more power to employers to intimidate workers. Last year, there was hardly any trade union opposition when the government passed the CNE, which lets a company with less than 20 employees sack any new worker during their first 24 months. Workers and youth were determined that this would not be repeated.

It was only in the face of a possible general strike and 75% support for the protests that sections of the ruling class conceded defeat. But in stopping the struggle now, the trade union leadership is squandering a major opportunity to put the divided elite further on the defensive and win some real gains for French workers and youth.

Now is the time to go onto the offensive against both the CNE and other neo-liberal measures, and to demand proper well-paid jobs for young people and the unemployed. Here is also an enormous opportunity for the labor movement to reach out to the youth of North African descent who rose up against their second-class status last fall.

The main political beneficiary of this movement in the short term is the Socialist Party, which is seeking to win the presidential election next year. A Socialist presidency will not, however, lead to fundamental change. The experience of Socialist Party governments time and again is that they operate within capitalism and will to a large extent go along with the neo-liberal agenda.

This illustrates why Gauche Revolutionnaire (our sister organization in France) calls for the formation of a new mass workers’ party. Such a party could combine all the strands of struggle against the neo-liberal agenda to challenge capitalist rule itself. The massive movement of workers and youth on the streets shows the potential for such a force to emerge, as do recent elections where candidates of the “far left” have gained over 10% of the vote.

The French workers and students were able to defeat a bill backed by the entire ruling class. They have illustrated the power of collective action. Despite the media’s attempts to label the students as “rioters” or “troublemakers”, the demonstrations were democratically-planned, peaceful actions. Industries were slowed if not stopped. Public transportation skidded to a halt.

It was the memory and fear of a true general strike, like that in 1968, that finally convinced the rich French rulers to give up on the CPE.

The Legacy of 1968

In France 1968 10 million people went out on strike, making it the largest general strike ever. They were striking to have more say in their lives, earn better wages, and work only the 40 hours mandated by law. The students and young workers of that strike are the parents of the current students and strikers. 

The strikes were started by students who were upset with the rigidity and alienation of a top-down education system and society. The student struggle lit the fires of an explosive movement of workers, who brought forward their own grievances with the government.

10 million workers were on strike and occupied their factories and workplaces, despite the fact that no major union or party had put out the call to strike. The French government was powerless. The police and army refused to act against their fellow workers.

In this situation, it was the strikers who ran society. Communities came up with methods of distribution not based on profit, but on need. This was a revolutionary situation. 

The working class had the opportunity to take power, but the reformist leadership of the main mass workers’ party, the Communist Party, failed to advance a clear program and strategy capable of leading the way forward out of capitalism. A great opportunity was lost, but the memory lingers on, and plagues the ruling class to this day.

Read more on France 1968
Month of Revolution: Lessons from the General Strike, by Clare Doyle. $8 (includes shipping)